Octaviano Ambrosio Larrazolo

Octaviano Ambrosio Larrazolo (7 December 1859-7 April 1930) was Governor of New Mexico (R) from 1 January 1919 to 1 January 1921 (succeeding Washington Lindsey and preceding Merritt C. Mechem) and a US Senator from New Mexico from 7 December 1928 to 3 March 1929, interrupting Bronson M. Cutting's two terms. He was the first Mexican-American to serve in the Senate.

Biography
Octaviano Ambrosio Larrazolo was born in Valle de Allende, Chihuahua, Mexico in 1859, and he left for Tucson, Arizona in 1870 with the goal of studying theology and becoming a Catholic priest. He became a teacher instead of becoming a priest, teaching in El Paso County, Texas before becoming a US citizen and Republican Party of Texas member in 1884. In 1888, he became a lawyer, and he moved to New Mexico in 1895. He switched his party affiliation to the Democratic Party in New Mexico, fighting for Hispanic civil rights. However, his 1900, 1906, and 1908 campaigns for territorial delegate failed, as most Hispanics in the Southwest were Republicans; in 1911, he returned to the Republican Party. He attacked the machine politics in New Mexico, fearing that Hispanics would be faced with their own Jim Crow segregation laws due to their exploitation at the hands of the politicians. In 1918, he was elected Governor of New Mexico, serving from 1919 to 1921. He suppressed a coal mining strike, pardoned captured Mexican troops who had raided the USA (saying that they were not responsible for carrying out Pancho Villa's orders), supported a new income tax law, advocated for bilingual education, and supported women's suffrage. His own party did not renominate him for the governorship, and he briefly returned to Texas before serving as a US Senator from New Mexico from 1928 to 1929, being elected to serve out the remainder of Andrieus A. Jones' term, and replacing the non-elected (acting) successor Bronson M. Cutting. He died in 1930.